Kangaroos must stand firm if Clarkson takes charge, says Hodge

NORTH Melbourne will need the “strength to control” Alastair Clarkson if it secures him to fill the club’s vacant coaching role, according to champion former Hawk Luke Hodge.

It’s understood the Kangaroos’ hierarchy plans to reach out to Clarkson or his management about leading the club, following the axing of David Noble this week.

Hodge, who won four premierships under Clarkson at Hawthorn, said stability would be key to securing and ensuring longevity with the four-time flag-winning coach.

“The hardest thing with Clarko – he’s not an easy person to deal with,” Hodge told SEN radio. “Yes, he is a great coach. I love him as a coach. As a mentor. But he’s not easy.

“And I reckon he would be the first to say that, and (his wife Caryn) would be the first to say that as well, and everyone that’s worked with him. But he gets results.

“If they’re going to go after him … yes, he’s going to have some opinions and that’s why he’s been such a good coach in the past.

“He’s very headstrong and very strong-willed, and he wants the best for the football club. But he can’t come in as ‘The Clarko Show’.

“He needs to know where his place is, and that means they need a stable board and stable off-field to let him know that. If that means that they get people in and around that have the strength to control him when they need to, then yes, he could go there.”

Like Clarkson, West Coast coach Adam Simpson has a connection to North Melbourne, having won two premierships as a player, but the Eagles are adamant he will honour his contract, which ends after next season.

Hodge said Clarkson thrived when Hawthorn was “very stable” under then-president Andrew Newbold and chief executive Stuart Fox.

But he maintained that any coach cannot “be running the football club”.

West Coast chief executive Trevor Nisbett emphatically ruled out any shift for Simpson.

“I will just reiterate. Adam has got a contract. We are in constant dialogue. He is going nowhere,” he said. “We are not happy with where we are and nor is he, but we have a strategy in place and we will stay with the strategy.

Nisbett said while neither Simpson or the club were satisfied with the current position on the ladder (17th with just two wins) both parties retained confidence in each other.